Zachary Quinto says that the future of movies isn’t at the multiplex but in our living rooms.
Quinto says that while studios won’t cease producing “tent-pole” films, he sees a niche for smaller films to find an audience using Video on Demand. Quinto is transitioning from in front of the camera to the production side of the business this year with a couple of films. Quinto is serving as producer for Margin Call and Breakup at a Wedding, for his Before the Door production company.
Breakup at a Wedding — which debuted on demand and on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video and other digital platforms June 18 — is a comedy about a couple who decide to end their engagement but go ahead with the ceremony, using the same sort of found-footage technique often seen in horror films. Quinto has known the film’s director,Victor Quinaz, since their days at Carnegie Mellon, which Quinto attended with his Before the Door partners Corey Moosa and Neal Dodson.
The nature of the cast and material, Quinto said, made the film seem best suited for digital distribution.
“You get into the budget of the film and the reach of the movie and the fact that many of the actors in this are up-and-coming, and for some of them, it’s their first feature and there’s no big box-office name to draw people into the theater, but there’s very good quality material and really good acting great humor and good heart, so we wanted it to reach as many people as we could and we felt like the VOD platform was the way to do that,” Quinto said.
“This isn’t a movie like Man of Steel or Star Trek that’s a big tentpole action spectacle film, and it can be enjoyed just as well in the comfort of someone’s home as it can be in the theater,” he added.
The “found-footage technique” is always very bad. But I guess I’ve only ever seen it in horror movies, so maybe it’ll work better in a comedy (well it could).
“big box-office names” are overrated, I’ve hundreds of films, and only about eight of them because of the actors (most of those weren’t even that good).
Overall I think Quinto is just try to promote his film, but I’m clearly stating the obvious there. Hopefully his career as a producer takes off, but doesn’t a producer merely fund the film or something else equally unimportant to the quality?